


can a glorified toaster fear death

by trash_mammall



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Stratford Tower, cole's just mentioned, connor's afraid of dying, simon's just mentioned, talk of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 11:08:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15095453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash_mammall/pseuds/trash_mammall
Summary: Connor was never afraid of dying before, but after feeling Simon die on Stratford Tower he starts to rethink that. Then he finds himself searching for something to show Hank who's the real Connor, and he comes up with just the thing.In other words: a look into Connor's mortality, and a redo of the CyberLife Tower scene





	can a glorified toaster fear death

Connor had never been afraid of dying.

Being an android, a machine with models to come and versions to be updated, dying had little implications. He knew that if anything were to happen during an investigation, the only side effect would be a slight loss in memory and perhaps a tear in his relationship with Lieutenant Anderson. Usually there would be even fewer problems if he were to be compromised, since normally he wouldn’t even have a partner.

Normally no one cared, not even himself.

“Dying” wasn’t even the right word, though he occasionally had to remind himself of this. Dying was a term for something organic, something biotic, something with a soul. He was all wires and circuits and screws, and there was nothing about him that held a soul.

Connor recalled hearing Detective Reed call him a “glorified toaster” at some point, and he had to agree, despite the simplification of his functions.

He was, in a way, a toaster.

But then he was on the roof of the Stratford Tower, and he was inside the mind of the deviant. It had been hasty, and irresponsible, but Connor couldn’t let the android be shot down without learning something. He wouldn’t let this entire case be a waste of time.

And then he felt fear.

It was near paralyzing, it was the epitome of _cold._ Connor had no knowledge of what panic, or terror, or fright felt like. He knew the emotions, knew what they did to the human body, but he had never experienced it.

And it was just a moment, a spine chilling moment, of this deviant’s fear, before it was nothing.

Connor felt oblivion.

The act of dying was not something he was unfamiliar with, he himself had died multiple times in missions, but this was something entirely different. He was not dying, he was not losing the memory of what that felt like, he was not allowed the reprieve of the finishing void of consciousness.

Connor felt the android die, and he felt the nothingness afterwards.

After the android collapsed at Connor’s feet, and Hank’s panicked concern filled his vision, it took a moment for his systems to realize he was okay. Error messages left one by one, and his energy slowly rerouted itself back to all systems as it realized he wasn’t in danger. His LED remained red for far too long afterwards.

Connor was unable to forget the feeling of death, and he began to realize that, perhaps, the term “death” wasn’t too inaccurate after all.

After that encounter, Connor rethought his view on dying.

He then found himself face to face with Hank, a revolver pointed between his eyes, and Hank asked a question he was not prepared to answer.

“Are you afraid to die, Connor?”

It was dripping with intoxicated anger, a certain guttural jaggedness that only came with Hank. It was not something Connor wanted to answer, if he could help it. He didn’t know if he was afraid, because logically he was still a machine.

He was metal, and plastic, and coding. He was abiotic in every sense of the word. He could not, technically, die.

But Connor’s mind fell back to the android on the roof, with Thirium-tainted snow at his feet, and he had to think. He wasn’t afraid, because he was not a deviant, but there was something there.

There was something paralyzing at the thought of being shut down.

He settled on the word “regrettable,” and ignored the part of him that yearned for a word far more emotional.

When Hank asked what there would be after death for androids, Connor knew the answer – he had seen, _felt,_ the answer.

“There would be nothing.” His voice wavered when he said it, the words coming out raw and unprotected.

He hadn’t meant to tear open his chest like that, allow Hank to see through his programming like that. By the way Hank’s brow furrowed, and he lowered the gun, Connor could guess there was no hiding the sincerity behind what he had said. There was no backtracking the look in his eyes when the topic was brought up.

When Connor was surrounded by the same model of android, one after another in a vast sea of unoriginality, he found himself looking down the barrel of Hank’s revolver once again.

Had the atmosphere been lighter, had he not been standing next to an identical twin of his own in a life-or-death situation, he would’ve commented on the irony of the fact that, of the people who had nearly killed him, his work partner was the one who most often threatened his life. He almost wanted to smile at the thought, laugh at the idea that perhaps they needed to work out some problems in their relationship because Hank really seemed to have it out for him.

Almost.

After the other Connor relayed his answer to Hank’s first question, he felt panic rise in him. His fingers twitched and his mind raced for anything that could have been missed in the memory upload. There wasn’t much information he could think of that he was confident hadn’t been shared, and so he forced himself to push against the growing fear of being shot.

The feeling of his Thirium pumping and his energy being routed to the essentials for battling danger or fleeing to safety was growing. The feeling wasn’t unfamiliar, as he had felt it far too vividly back on Stratford Tower, but it wasn’t something he enjoyed. It wasn’t something he wanted to relive.

The idea of “feelings” being a part of him was incredibly new, and he hadn’t been incredibly keen in its ability to make him ansty or jumpy, but he couldn’t help hypothesize its usefulness _now_. The idea of uploading his memory was based on information, it was lines of coding that translated to his experiences, but it was not made under the impression that emotions would be included.

After all, androids weren’t meant to feel anything.

And so Connor looked Hank directly in the eyes. There was a beat of silence, a beat of Connor running through what he should say as Hank to glace between the two RK800 models.

And Connor thought back to the feeling of death, and he took a breath.

“I’ve never known a lot about death. I used to believe androids couldn’t die, and the notion of it never really bothered me. There was an android ready to replace me the moment I went offline, so what was the point in worrying? But then I started working with you, and experienced something completely unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.”

Hank frowned, curious, and Connor continued, “On Stratford Tower, I looked into the memory of a specific android, and he killed himself while I was still in his mind. I told you I felt him die, I told you I had been scared, but I never explained more than that. And that day on the bridge, when you asked me if I was afraid to die, I was not completely honest about that, either.”

Connor took a breath, looking over at the second Connor to his left. The android was still, unfeeling. It took him a moment to realize that only a day ago, Connor had looked exactly like that model. Cold, analytical, and a machine.

That Connor was unmistakably nothing but a machine.

“Hank, I am absolutely terrified of death.” Connor looked back at Hank as he spoke, voice wavering. “I’ve died before, but nothing felt as absolute as being inside that android’s mind when he pulled the trigger. I’ve seen, and felt, and _lived_ what happens after death through that android, Hank. I told you the truth – it is absolute oblivion. It was void-like and overwhelming and I am terrified of feeling that again. And god, Hank, I know what happens when androids die-” Connor took a breath, steadying himself- “but I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone.”

Hank took a shaky breath, but his gun remained steady. He kept his eyes bouncing between the two figures in front of him, always cautious.

“Three years ago you lost Cole, and you’ve kept that with you ever since.” The whole room seemed to still as Connor continued to speak, and Hank’s eyes remained on him far longer than the on other android. “Your car rolled over, and the only one available to operate on him was an android. That’s why you hate them, and why you were so resistant against me being your partner. I have no idea what that must’ve felt like, and I can’t begin to understand how you felt, or still feel. But you have to understand that it wasn’t your fault, Hank. And I know it can be easy to blame yourself, or wish it was you instead of him, but you have to learn to let that remain in the past.”

Connor blinked as the world blurred slightly, and he felt synthetic tears run down his cheek.

“You have to learn to keep moving forward, for yourself and for Cole, because he isn’t in pain. Androids are abiotic wires and circuits, Hank, but humans? Humans have souls, and what happens after death will forever remain a mystery, but it certainly is not the cold nothingness of shutting down.

“Cole is safe, Hank, and I’m sure he would want you to be, too.”

The shot of Hank’s revolver echoed through the room, and Connor wiped at his cheeks. When he was able to focus on Hank’s face, his eyes were red, and Connor realized he had never seen the Lieutenant on the verge of tears before.

Hank kept his eyes on the RK800 lying limply on the floor, his voice gruff but gentler than usual. “Cole died because the human surgeon was high off his ass on Red Ice. It wasn’t the android’s fault, she was just doing her best under the circumstances.”

The two looked at each other for a moment, and Connor furrowed his brows.

“How did you know it was me?” Logistically, the other android could have relayed the same information. It was in his memory, and the functions of emotions were relayed in his coding for the purposes of investigation. While it wouldn’t be as authentic, there was a chance the information could have been the same.

Hank smirked, pulling Connor into a hug before he could protest, and spoke quietly.

“Because I remember the bridge, and I remember the look on your face when you talked about death back then.”

Connor nodded against Hank’s shoulder, LED cycling from red to yellow. The steady beat of Hank’s heart was a constant against his own chest, and he allowed it to pulse through him. It was grounding, and the scent of whiskey was familiar in its ability to make him feel more comforted than he typically was – being in his line of work, very little was comforting.

And he felt Hank take a low breath, and Connor was able to believe, in that moment, that they were both going to be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> another one shot, woooo ! can't stop these hands !
> 
> thank you so much for reading, i greatly appreciate it and i hope you enjoyed! I wanted to write more of Connor and Hank bc they're good guys who know more about each other than they let on.
> 
> talk to me on tumblr if you'd like (trash-mammall), and stay safe !!


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